Thursday, March 7, 2013

UK government not reducing pollution in line with legal limits

With all the concern over atmospheric pollution levels in
China a story may have escaped notice. The UK government is facing a case in
the UK Supreme Court over its failure to reduce air pollution in line with
legal limits (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21691784).
The government admitted that limits would not be meet in 15 regions until 2020
(London will not comply until 2025). This comes on top of the government having
to issue a severe pollution warning for London this week.

The response of the government has been to say that the laws
are unrealistically strict and that the EU didn’t set proper limits on
pollution from diesel exhaust in the first place. Why they view these limits
are unrealistic is not clear. Do they mean given the current economic situation
it is not realistic to expect pollution to be tackled? Do they mean the limits
are to be meet in too short a timeframe? Does the comment imply that there is
an expected time lag between introducing the limits and compliance – if so why?
Does the comment relate to how the government expects such changes in polluting
behaviour to be tackled within the particular political and economic context of
the UK.

DEFRA stated that the government has acted to reduce
emissions of nitrogen dioxide through trying to encourage behaviour changes in
divers via tax breaks and subsidies for low emission vehicles. Likewise, there
has been investment in green bus technologies(£75million) along with £560m to encourage local sustainable transport.
This is the government response to trying to improve the atmospheric levels of
PM10s and nitrogen dioxide, key pollutants from road traffic. In other words
responsible for implementing and resolving the issue has been delegated
downwards to the local level, indeed even as far as down the individual driver.
Action is also indirect via tax incentives to which individuals are meant to
respond in the manner the government thinks they should.Rather than direct action or legislation,
the government has taken a ‘nudge’ approach to the problem, developing policies
and the context or environment that they believe will provide the impetus to
encourage change in the direction they want. Reduction in atmospheric pollution
is a side-effect, an outcome of these nudges. The question could be asked will
these nudges be effective? Likewise, how can you measure the impact of such
nudges to assess if they have been effective?

The threat of court action also places the complaints over
Chinese pollution in a different light. It could be argued that the atmospheric
pollution levels in the UK are much lower than in China and so different
criteria should be applied to the problems of the UK government. The UK is not
dealing with dense smogs that clog lungs and increase death rates (although
calculations do suggest that traffic pollution does cause excess deaths in the
UK as noted in the above report). The pollution of concern in the UK seems to
be focused on road traffic and so a linear pollution source whilst the Chinese
are having to deal with point, linear and areal sources as they go through
rapid urbanization and economic growth.
Indeed the Chinese are having to cope with multiple sources of differing magnitudes and with both private and official institutions involved. The magnitudes of the pollution maybe of different orders in the UK and
China but both are struggling to balance the needs of economic development and
the pollution it produces.So is
atmospheric pollution the unavoidable price for economic development?

About Me

I am an academic geographer, madly interested in my subject - stone decay and all things environmental - as well as being a long-time fan of science fiction (or science fantasy, never sure what the difference really is).